As the sun shown low on the horizon and lit the clouds of the coming dawn with the glorious colors of morning, the daughter of the great chief of the Hočągara came into this world. As the sun rolled on its celestial path, the Thunders swept away all the clouds that the sky might shine blue everywhere without blemish, and the winds might be stilled. What the web maker wrought seemed to stand suspended. The Thunders had blessed this event by holding the day and keeping back their dark, warlike clouds. At dawn during the Earth Digging Moon, a time of new life and new beginnings, was born in the Thunderbird Clan a girl namedHopokoekau, "Glory of the Morning."

She grew into the beauty of the heavenly Yųgiwi, who wraps herself in the glory of the evening. As an earthly yųgiwi, she was endowed with great wisdom that set her apart from all others, even her elders. In her eighteenth winter her father was struck down and walked the path west to the ancestors. The nation had to find a new chief, and only virtue could win this station. Compared to Glory of the Morning, her brothers were but dim lights. No one could be named that excelled her in wisdom, despite her youth. Her blessings could only mean that she must be chief, but never in history had a woman ascended to lead the nation. So at harvest time, when the Corn Popping Moon was a crescent in the morning sky, she was named chief. The violation of tradition caused a great schism, and nearly half the nation uprooted and lived apart. In time, however, many of them acceded to her elevation.

When the Fox clashed with the French, the Spirit People, she sided with her old allies and neighbors; but the French were a great power, and the nation could not find safety and prosperity by struggling against the inevitable. At that time there came to them a leader of men from the Spirit People, one whose name sounded like te-kara, "this my own." They fell in love. He cast away his own rank, resigning as an officer in the Great King's army, and settled into a life in the prosperous fur trade. Thus they came to be married in the romantic mating time of the Elk Whistling Moon. Seven years passed with war between her French brethren and her old allies, the Fox; but through her untiring efforts, the warclub was set aside. After two sons and a daughter were born to them, Dekorah began to feel a longing for his people in Quebec. As chief of the nation, she could not join him, but she let her daughter be his companion there. Many years passed, when she had the nation go again on the warpath against their most bitter enemies, the Illini. They struck hard against the Michigamea and the Cahokia. Although her husband was far away, she remained steadfast in her loyalty to the French, and when war broke out with the Zaganąš, she put her own nation on the warpath, striking the Big Knife settlements far to the east. Her eldest son, Čugiga, joined his father in Quebec that they might throw back the Zaganąš invasion, but there Dekorah met his end. After the overthrow of the French, she threw in her lot with the Zaganąš, refusing to join the campaign of Pontiac, and recieving kindly a Zaganąšcaptain just a few years later.

One day late in her life, Glory of the Morning was out in the stands of pine, there perhaps seeking a blessing. As she tried to commune with the spirits, an owl came hither, and from its perch it uttered her name. Such is an omen of the end, and she knew it. Not long afterwards, in the Deer Antler Shedding Moon, she had a vision in which her father called out to her from the beyond. That night, even though the snow fell, the sound of the Thunders was heard. When her sons entered her lodge, they found her lying dead wrapped in her furs with a smile on her face.1

Commentary."daughter" — most say that she was the daughter of the head chief of the tribe.2 However, Grignon and others following him, asserted that she was his sister.3 According to Lyman Draper, One-Eyed Decorah (Wajxatega) (b. ca. 1772), the son of Čaposgaga, told Judge Gale that he was descended from the chief of the tribe through his grandmother.4 All agree that their village was on Doty Island.

"the great chief" — he is likely to have been the last chief of the Hočąk nation as a whole.

"holding the day" — a power possessed by certain spirits and even by holy men that enables them to keep the sky free of weather disturbances. It is said that a human can, if blessed with powerful enough medicine, hold the day for a period of four days.

"Thunderbird Clan" — her father was the chief, and all peace chiefs come from the Thunderbird Clan. Therefore, she is of the Thunderbird Clan. Her mother was said to have come from the Eagle Clan.5 This last contention is anomalous, since marriage (with the sole exception of the Wolf Clan) was between moieties, and the Thunder and Eagle Clans both belong to the Upper Moiety (known also as the "Bird Clan").

"named" — the traditions collected by David Lee Smith say that she was so named because of the character of the day.6 All primary historical sources agree that her name in English is "Glory of the Morning." The genealogical tradition, which is poorly documented (if at all), also adduces the name "The Coming Dawn," which is much the same. There is, however, significant variation in the Hočąk version of her name. The most frequently given Hočąk form of her name is Hopokoekau.7 Just one source gives Wa-ho-po-e-kau.8 More recently, Professor Lurie has given us Haarpokewinga.9 This would be, in the orthography used here, Hąpokewįga (where -wį is a feminine suffix). Yet another version will be considered at the end of this commentary entry; and see below for a radical departure from this interpretation of her name.

How should we understand the orthography of Hopokoekau? In English phonetic renderings, /e/ is usually the same as the /i/ used in the orthography adopted here. This would mean that /-oe-/ would not stand for a long /o/, but would be two distinct sounds as the rather odd Wa-ho-po-e-kau has it. We know that names all end in -ka/-ga, forms of the definite article used in indirect address to the person named. This leaves Hopokoe to be analyzed. We know, as from the example given by Lurie, that female names end with the penultimate syllable -wį, which indicates the feminine gender of the referent. The pursing of the lips when the vowels /o/ or /u/ are said is reflected in Hočąk spelling conventions using /w/, in which "he comes, and ..." is rendered Ko w n K, transliterated as guanąga or guwanąga, the former to be preferred. So conversely, naive English speaking listeners will sometimes miss a /w/ where it is present in Hočąk. (Lurie's version, Haarpokewinga (= Hąpokewįga), is probably derived by recognizing the terminal -kau of Hopokoekau to be -ka/-ga, and then inserting the appropriate penultimate feminine infix -wį- to make it a woman's name.) A name like Hopoko-wį-ga can easily be distorted to Hopoko-e-kau, with the rather odd /o-e/ combination as an understandable distortion of /o-wį/. We can now recognize that the -e-kau ending is just the familiar feminine -wį-ga that terminates all women's names. This leaves us with the puzzle of how Hopoko can mean "Glory of the Morning." The word for glory is seen easily enough. When the New Testament was translated into Hočąk, most instances of "glory" were left untranslated in Latin (gloria). However, at Luke 2:9, "glory" is the translation of ho-hąp-jį, an emphatic variant of hąp, "light, day, glory."10 Gatschet recorded this word as hohomp, reflecting the general tendency to hear the Hočąk nasal /ą/ as a short /o/. Given this tendency, hopoko could certainly be hąpoko, where we may translate hąp/hǫp as "glory." Such a result forces us to give the meaning "morning" to -oko-. Unfortunately, the word for morning is haini, which bears no resemblance at all to oko or any possible variant. In any case, the word is not likely oko, words beginning in /o/ being very rare, but hoko, as the /h/ in compounds in which it follows a consonant usually disappears, as with nųx-hopox, "ear-hole," which becomes nųxopox. The form hoko is spelled in Hočąk syllabic as Ao Ko, which is ambiguous among hoko, hoku, huko, huku, hogo, hogu, etc. As this example shows, not much attention is paid in most cases to the difference between /k/ and /g/ or /o/ and /u/. This is also reflected in the way in which Hočąk is heard by speakers of other languages who frequently confuse these phonemes. One of these alternant forms, hogu, does connect with the sense of "morning." Substituting hogu for hoko in our compound hąp-hoko, we get hąp-hogu. This yields hąbogú-ra (where -ra is merely the definite article), which is translated in one source as "the coming day." How we derive the meaning "coming day" is rather puzzling, since the word hąbogura everywhere else means "east." The solution to the puzzle can be found when we analyze hogu into the compound ho-gu. The suffix ho- means, "the place where, the time when" (Lipkind, Marino); and gu means, "to bring, to bring forth; to come" (Lipkind, Marino), and "to leave returning" (Miner). So hąp-ho-gu-ra (> hąbogura) means "east," when ho- means "the place where," giving us for the analytic meaning of the compound, "the place where day comes or is brought forth." When ho- is understood temporally, hąbogura becomes "the time when day comes." This time is, of course, morning.11 In syllabic Hočąk, the word hąbogura is spelled, Al lo Ko ℒe (hąbogura, hąbokora, hąpokora, etc.). The term hąpogura is therefore easily altered to hopokura, as we see, for instance, in some stories recorded by Sam Blowsnake, where we find hąpokureki (1, 2), hąpokura (1, 2, 3), and finally, hopokura. Given the common alternance between /o/ and /u/ in Siouan languages generally, we can easily come to hopoko(ra), "glory, (of) the time at which it comes." Therefore, the female name Hopokowįga can fairly be translated as "Glory of the Morning," although its alternate translation, "The Coming Dawn," is more apt. Having made this derivation, we can now see that the proper orthography of this name is Hąboguwįga. The source of corruption (not necessarily in this order) is substituting /k/ for /g/, /p/ for /b/, /o/ for /u/, and /o/ for /ą/, with the /w/ being assimilated into the preceding /o/. The following sequence would then exemplify a path of corruption: Hąboguwįga > Hąbokuwįka > Hąpokuwįka > Hąpokowįka > Hopokowįka > Hopokoika, which is rendered in another phonetic system as Hopokoekau. After I completed this analysis, I came across the variant Habogųįga, which can be seen as a sandhi variant of Hąboguwįga.12 This more definitive variant confirms the analysis given here.

"yųgiwį" — a term that means "leader-woman," and usually refers to the chief's daughters, although it may also denote a queen. The alternant forms, hi-ųgiwį, and hųgiwį also exist, and all derive from the stem hųk, "chief."

Sunrise, August 22, 1729

"a crescent" — David Lee Smith states that her election to chief was accomplished "during the closing of the Corn Popping Month (August)." I've expressed this in terms of the moon and the morning: the end of the month, which is the end of the moon, is seen in the sky as the moon dwindling to a crescent and approaching ever closer to the sun in the morning just before sunrise. Not long after, it appears to fall into the sun and the earth (conjunction), bringing the month/moon to an end. As it happens, near the very end of the Corn Popping Moon in August, at the latitude of Madison Wisconsin (essentially the same as Doty Island), the moon falls into a straight line formed by Morning Star, Jupiter, the crescent moon, Mercury, and the sun. The line points to the coming dawn, the glory of the morning. This appears to be a unique event. Although something like this occured on September 20, 1729, it involved only Jupiter and Venus forming a line with the moon, and pointing somewhat east of the sun. So the powerful configuration is unique to that time in late August. The year is certainly plausible enough as the time of the events in question. Was the time of year chosen ex post facto from an astronomy program, or was it a remembrance of the tradition? There are some interesting coincidences associated with this date that may suggest the latter. The alternate form of her name, a form which cannot be reconciled with the meaning "Glory of the Morning," is Wa-ho-po-e-kau, given by de la Ronde, an early primary source.13 By a happy coincidence (or design?), wahąp means "green corn," the kind of corn harvested at the end of the Corn Popping Month. This version of the name could be analyzed as wahąp-ho-į-wį-ga, "the time at which green corn exists." This would not be a clan name, but a name given to her on account of some important incident of her life aptly expressed in her name. "Woman of the Green Corn Time" could be a name commemorating her ascension to the chieftainship, or commemorating the signal celestial event confirming her entitlement to the office. Also the very rare configuration of the planets, moon, and sun at just the right time of day, the dawn, would serve to explain how there could be such a radical departure from tradition with the election of a woman chief. With the greatest stars in the sky, led by the warrior deity Great Star, aligning with the goddess Moon, patron of women, all pointing to the coming dawn, would be an overpowering sign from heaven. The Great Star is a friend of the Thunders (some say the founder of the Thunderbird Clan), and bears the name, "He Who is Girded in Blankets (Clouds)." Under the patron of the chief's clan, the Thunderbird Clan, all these brilliant celestial bodies form a line that actually points to the very referent of her name, the coming dawn (hąpogu). Furthermore, the moon is one or two days from conjunction with the sun, a process that appears as the uniting of the moon with the sun's fire. Fire is the sacred possession of the Thunderbird Clan, symbolizing sovereignty. Therefore, the union of the lunar goddess with the celestial Fire is symbolic of the union of the female candidate named by the signs in the sky with the embodiment of sovereignty itself.

"whose name" — said by the sole primary source (de la Ronde) to be "Sabrevoir de Carrie."14 De la Ronde's life was about a century after that of de Carrie. However, the genealogical tradition (undocumented) asserts that he had the name "Joseph."15 This leads to the idea that one or the other was a middle name. To this end, the geneaologists give us Joseph Sabrevoir Décarrie, and Sabrevoir Joseph Décarrie. The name "Sabrevoir" is less common than its variant, "Sabrevois," with "Sabrevoie" sometimes seen, and "Sabrevoix" but rarely. In France it is a place name, and in Quebec it is an eliptic way of referring to the town Sainte-Anne-Sabrevois (also written "Sainte-Anne-Sabrevoie"). Otherwise, "Sabrevois" is common only as a surname. The "Sabrevois" in de Carrie's name could be in honor of the village in Quebec or of a sieur bearing that patronym. About the time of Sabrevois de Carrie's birth, a young officer (b. ca. 1665) of the name Jacques-Charles de Sabrevois, had gained some recognition as a fine officer in the French Army in Quebec. He had immigrated to Quebec from France when he was only 15 years of age, so that by the 1690's he had already made a reputation for himself. It would seem that it was around this time that Sabrevois de Carrie was born, and on the assumption (not universally shared) that he had been born in Quebec, he may well have been named in honor of the notable Sabrevois, in whose footsteps he would eventually follow. Only later did French officers sour on Sabrevois, calling him "harsh and avaricious"; nevertheless, he continued to enjoy the support of both the governor and the king.

"her daughter" — this is said in Smith's text to be Oakleaf.16 Murphy cites the Hočąk version of this name as, Nąnoap.17 She obtained the Hočąk versions of her names from the HoCąk Wazija Haci Language Division of the HoChunk Nation.18 The full version should be Nąno'abewįga (< Ną-no-'ap-wį-ga). The word nąno appears in Miner's wordlist as "oak wood." This would seem to have come from a very early *nǫ-nǫ, a reduplicated emphatic which literally means, "wood-wood," a way of emphasizing the hardness of oak. However, it is rather odd that the word "oakleaf" should be rendered as "oak-wood leaf," rather than čašgegu'ap, "oak leaf." In fact, it appears that the name "Oakleaf" comes from the play "Glory of the Morning" written by Prof. Leonard in 1912.19 The cast of characters consists of a medicine man called "Black Wolf," the "Chevalier" (= de Carrie), who is given the Indian name "Half Moon," Glory of the Morning, and their two children, Red Wing and Oak Leaf. All these names except "Glory of the Morning" appear to be made up. However, they are not without their source of inspiration. In one of the readily available sources for "Glory of the Morning" in 1912, the Recollections of Augustin Grignon, we find in a single sentence, the names "Leaf," "Red Wing," and "Black Wolf," with the former two (brother and sister in the play) occurring right next to each other.20 The theater set contains an oak tree with oak leaves scattered about according to the stage directions, so there is not much of a leap from Leaf to Oak Leaf. Oakleaf, ex hypothesi, will have entered the "tradition" by some Hočąks inferring incorrectly from the play that this was the real name of the daughter and spreading this conclusion so that it soon became indistinguishable from the authentic elements of the oral tradition.

George B. Campion, The Battle of Sainte-Foy

"Dekorah met his end" — Sabrevoir de Carrie was mortally wounded April 28, 1760 at the Battle of Ste. Foy, and later died in the hospital in Montreal.21

"captain" — this was Capt. Jonathan Carver, a Connecticut Yankee in the service of the Crown. His remarks on Glory of the Morning, whom he visited in 1766, I reproduce here in full:

(32) On the 25th [of September] I left the Green Bay, and proceeded up Fox River, ſtill in company with the traders and ſome Indians. On the 25th I arrived at the great town of the Winnebagoes, ſituated on a ſmall iſland juſt as you enter the eaſt end of Lake Winnebago. Here the queen who preſided over this tribe inſtead of a Sachem, received me with great civility, and entertained me in a very diſtinguiſhed manner, during the four days I continued with her.

The day after my arrival I held a council with the chiefs, of whom I aſked permiſſion to paſs through their country, in my way to more remote nations on buſineſs of importance. This was readily granted me, the requeſt being eſteemed by them as a great compliment paid to their tribe. The Queen ſat in (33) the council, but only aſked a few queſtions, or gave ſome trifling directions in matters relative to the ſtate; for women are never allowed to ſit in their councils, except they happen to be inveſted with the ſupreme authority, and then it is not cuſtomary for them to make any formal ſpeeches as the chiefs do. She was a very ancient woman, ſmall in ſtature, and not much diſtinguiſhed by her dreſs from ſeveral young women that attended her. Theſe her attendants ſeemed greatly pleaſed whenever I ſhowed any tokens of reſpect to their queen, particularly when I ſaluted her, which I frequently did to acquire her favour. On theſe occaſions the good old lady endeavoured to aſſume a juvenile gaiety, and by her ſmiles ſhowed ſhe was equally pleaſed with the attention I paid her. ...

(38) Having made ſome acceptable preſents to the good old queen, and received her bleſſing, I left the town of the Winnebagoes on the 29th of September ...22

"late in her life" — when Juliette Kinzie visited her in 1832, she was still alive. In that year she would have been 121 years of age, quite nearly a record. The only way to avoid this conclusion is to assume that she was pregnant at age 15 in 1730, in which case she still would have been 117 years of age. This is what Mrs. Kinzie had to say of her:

(278) There was among their number, this year, one whom I had never before seen—the mother of the elder Day-kau-ray. No one could tell her age, but all agreed that she must have seen upwards of a hundred winters. Her eyes dimmed, and almost white with age—her face dark and withered, like a baked apple—her voice tremulous and feeble, except when raised in fury to reprove her graceless grandsons, who were fond of playing her all sorts of mischievous tricks, indicated the very great age she must have attained.

She usually went upon all fours, not having strength to hold herself erect. On the day of the payment, having received her portion, which she carefully hid in the corner of her blanket, she came crawling along and seated herself on the door step, to count her treasure.

My sister and I were watching her movements from the open window.

Presently, just as she had unobserved, as she thought, spread out her silver before her, two of her descendants (279) came suddenly upon her. At first they seemed begging for a share, but she repulsed them with angry gestures, when one of them made a sudden swoop, and possessed himself of a handful. She tried to rise, to pursue him, but was unable to do more than clutch the remainder and utter the most unearthly screams of rage. At this instant the boys raised their eyes and perceived us regarding them. They burst into a laugh, and with a sort of mocking gesture they threw her the half dollars, and ran back to the play ground.

In spite of their vexatious tricks, she seemed very fond of them, and never failed to beg something of her Father, that she might bestow upon them.

She crept into the parlor one morning, then straightening herself up, and supporting herself by the frame of the door, she cried in a most piteous tone,—Shaw-nee-aw-kee Wau-tshob-ee-rah Thsoonsh-koo-nee-noh! [Žaniąki ho(kik)čąbira čųšgunįno] (Money-bringer I have no looking glass.) My husband smiling and taking up the same little tone, cried, in return,—

Do you wish to look at yourself mother?

The idea seemed to her so irresistibly comic that she laughed until she was fairly obliged to seat herself upon the floor and give way to her enjoyment. She then owned that it was for one of the boys that she wanted the little mirror. When her Father had given it to her, she found that she had no comb, then that she had no knife, then that she had no calico shawl, until it ended, as it generally did, by Shaw-nee-aw-kee paying pretty dearly for his joke.23

The concluding word of the phrase that she gave "in piteous tones" would normally have been čų-šgunį-ną, but when the last syllable is drawn out, the terminal /ą/ changes to an /o/. Col. Kinzie's title, Shawneeawkee, is really Shawnee + (h)ąké, the latter word being Hočąk for "not." The title "Silver[-man]" is probably in Ojibwe, in which language zhooniya (žuniya) means "silver, money." This is no doubt akin to žura in Hočąk, of the same meaning. She is actually calling him Žuniya, "Silver" in Anishanaabe, the lingua franca of the time. As to her great age, Merrell claimed to have seen her even later than the Kinzies, and estimated her age at that time to be 143; but in a note, Lyman C. Draper showed that this woman had to have been a Sauk, and therefore the woman that Merrell saw could not have been Glory of the Morning.24

Juliette Kinzie

John Kinzie

Henry Merrell

"pine" — a patriotic allusion, as the Hočąk homeland is called Wazija, the "Pinery."

Snowy Owls

"an owl came hither" — the prominent appearance of owls in Glory of the Morning's story brings up profound questions regarding her name. It is highly probable that the name that has come down to us is Hąboguwįga, more aptly translated as "The Coming Dawn." This name is otherwise unattested, although this is not particularly surprising, as we probably possess only a fraction of the pool of clan names. There was one name that is, however, strikingly similar to Hokopoeka/Hąboguwįga that was collected in the XIXᵀᴴ century by the Rev. J. O. Dorsey. This name is from the "Bird Clan," which is really the Upper Moiety that consists of four clans, Thunderbird, Eagle, Hawk, and Pigeon. The name is Hąpokuwįga (< Hąpok-gu-wį-ga), "Owl Returning Hither."25 We can see immediately that this name bears a far stronger resemblance to Hopokoeka than does Hąboguwįga, but it is also nearly identical to the latter as well. So similar are the two names Hąpokuwįga and Hąboguwįga that they can be spelled exactly the same way in syllabic script as Al lo Ko wi K. Could it be that she originally had the name "Owl Coming Hither," and that subsequent events caused a different sense to be given to it by punning? The death story of Glory of the Morning strongly suggests that someone understood that her name was ambiguous in just this way. What we don't know is whether Glory of the Morning was her name, and whether "Owl Coming Hither" was used as a pun by her detractors to suggest that a female chief was not only anathema, but dangerous to the nation. Regardless, her supporters successfully put a positive spin on it. The events of late August 1729, are strikingly symbolic in a way that strongly favors Glory of the Morning, although not necessarily her name. It may have been that she had the name "Owl Coming Hither" when these events transpired, and that the celestial events accentuated the pun, so that she acquired this variant name (or interpretation of her name) as a consequence. Many people were known not by their clan names but by names they had acquired in adulthood through distinguishing events. "Glory of the Morning" could be one such name, just as we saw above that it is plausible that Wahąpoiwįga (> Wahopoeka), "She who is of the Time of Green Corn," was also acquired as an adult name from the astronomical events of that time. Even if these events happened after her ascension to the chieftainship, they could have had a profound impact on her status and given rise to these adult names.

Against this thesis is the idea that the name Hąpokuwįga is not a Thunderbird Clan name, but one more appropriate to the Hawk Clan, also a member of the Upper Moiety or "Bird Clan." The Hawk Clan was known in more recent times as the Warrior Clan. The Thunderbird Clan, which is the chief's clan, is associated with the Good Thunderbirds (Wakąja-pįra), whereas the Hawk/Warrior Clan is associated with the Bad Thunderbirds (Wakąja-šišigera). The relationship among the Upper Moiety clans is seen in this diagram based on the Bird Clan Creation Myth:

The Hawk Clan has names like "Man-Eater" to reflect this association. The reason why we might think that an owl name is appropriate to the Hawk Clan is an interesting result of comparing clans among the tribes most closely related to the Hočągara (see Table). The Chiwere (Missouria, Oto, and Ioway) separated from the Hočągara about the time of Columbus. The Missouria, like the Hočągara, have a Hawk Clan, but the Ioway have in its place an Owl Clan, and the Oto have a Hoot Owl Clan. That the Hočąk Hawk Clan is associated with the Bad Thunders and the forces of metaphorical darkness (holding prisoners, cannibalism), it would seem that the proto-clan was the Owl Clan, as the hawk is the bird of the sun, and the owl that of the night. No doubt there were Hawk and Owl sub-clans, and the dominance of one or the other was the outcome of competition or mere survival. We can say with confidence that Glory of the Morning was a member of the Thunderbird Clan, and if it is the case that the name "Owl Coming Hither" is a Hawk Clan name only, then it could not have belonged to her. However, we do not know this, even if it is probable, and furthermore, we cannot even be certain that such names did not circulate around all the Bird Clans, as there are numerous names shared by them. Therefore, it remains possible that the queen's real clan name was Hąpokuwįga, "Owl Coming Hither."

"omen" — owls are considered sinister, and their appearance is usually taken as an ill omen. Misbehaving children are often kept in line by telling them "the owls will get you."

"called out to her" — in stories of visits to Spiritland, where the protagonist tries to make it back to the living, he must at all hazard avoid succumbing to the ghosts who call out to him to join in their activities. Those whom the ghosts successfully summon never return to the living.

"snow" — thunder is almost never heard during snow storms. The frequency of lightning strikes in winter can be guaged by the number of deaths from lightning during each month of the year. This statistic was tabulated for the years 1890-1900.26

Deaths by Lightning, 1890-1900

Month

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Total

3

5

48

157

555

974

1,060

795

227

54

11

3

The significance of such an event in this context is that the Thunders, those who blessed her, are signalling her departure (see "Themes" below). Her intimate relationship with the Thunders would suggest to the religious that she may have been an incarnated Thunderbird.

2 James H. Lockwood (b. 1793), "Early Times and Events in Wisconsin," Wisconsin Historical Collections, 2 (1856): 98-196 [178]; George Gale, Upper Mississippi: Or, Historical Sketches of the Mound-Builders, the Indian Tribes, and the Progress of Civilization in the North-West, from A.D. 1600 to the Present Time (New York: Oakley and Mason, 1867) 81. Note by Draper in McBride, "The Capture of Black Hawk," 297; Lawson, "The Winnebago Tribe," 136. Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe, 155.

11 By substituting the near synonym -gi, "when," for ho-, "the time when," we get much the same result: hąp-gu-gi, "when day comes, dawn." This shows that the other English version of her name, "Coming Dawn," is probably a better translation.

12 Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, A Gathering of Rivers: Indians, Métis, and Mining in the Western Great Lakes, 1737-1832 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000) 28. The Hočąk form of the name was supplied to her by the HoCąk Wazija Haci Language Division of the HoChunk Nation. Murphy, p.c. 8 March 2009.

13 de la Ronde, "Personal Narrative," 347.

14 de la Ronde, "Personal Narrative," 347. This seems to be the only early source that has the name "Sabrevoir." A genealogical site, "Trade Goods" (tradegoods.org) > decorah (et alia), gives the following variants of his first name: Sabrevois, Sabrevoie, Sabrevoir.

15 Murphy, A Gathering of Rivers, 28. This is found in the genealogical tradition, which is not very well documented. See "Trade Goods" (tradegoods.org) > decorah (et alia). It may have originated with Kellogg, who says that his name was "Joseph des Caris," which is almost certainly wrong, since it does not match the versions of the name found in any primary source. See Louise Phelps Kellogg, The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1925) 435. Later she gives the name as "Sabrevoir de Caris." Louise Phelps Kellogg, "The Winnebago Visit to Washington in 1828," Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 29 (1935): 347-354 [348].

19 William Ellery Leonard, "Glory of the Morning. A Play in One Act," for the Wisconsin Dramatic Society, 1912. Published in "Wisconsin Plays," Thomas H. Dickinson, ed. (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1919) 117-187.